Smells like Teen Spirit– Waiting on My Ruca

I grew up in a suburb of Long Beach, CA where we kids rode bikes to eachother´s houses and were gone for hours as we adventured around the neighborhood seeing who was available to play or we would roll up to the El Dorado Library 6 kids deep wanting to sign up for the Summer Reading Club. When I was a teenager I would ride my bike around Long Beach hoping to catch the Sublime trio playing at Rosie´s Dog Beach while singing their songs on our bikes like Now and Then.

In the evenings we would make up ghost stories and spook ourselves with neighborhood lore. We would hop on our trusty bikes again, get snacks from 7-11 and creep into Stevely Park while the fog was heavy and the night was inching closer. We would play on the playground while the sun set. Teenagers who would pretend we weren´t playing on the swings just testing them but really, we were freeing ourselves from being in the inbetween of having to be more mature because of our age while also missing the movement only a playground could bring back in us. hRooted in Reflection Blog

I had a group of 3 friends who were also daughters of Mexican parents and luckily for us our parents hung out together, had fiestas where they would dance for hours and serve us huge bowls of pozole verde then let us go run around and play. We would never tell them we were having seances and opening portals but were we? Hell yeah. 

Now when I need to let out a good cry that has been lodged in my throat for too long or when I need a push from inner anger to outer action, I consult with my inner teen through the medium of a seance. 

Who is Our Inner Teenager?

Our Inner Teenager is a brave voice inside of us that reminds us of injustice and propaganda as a false path. They are not rebels so much as they are truth tellers and they have the gift of seeing right through fake people but they were once not believed or acknowledged. Our inner teen is that time period we met our many protectors and masks and the beliefs they carried and needs they didn´t get met still live through us as the Spirit of Shame or Grief.

We have the ability to change that now. We have so much our inner teen is carrying as their story of who they are and why they are undeserving of grand gestures of love. 

These stories are archaic and were created to uphold a family pattern or a systemic legacy of holding your teenage self as an example rooted in shame. 

You were just a teenager, a child in between childhood and pushed into adult judgement because of your growing body and oppressive gender norms. 

Why Conjure them?

Often time people are afraid to contact their Inner Teen Spirit for fear of beginning up past wounds and relieving their dissapintments. Many people say they were bad or unwanted and they fear they will see themselves in that way and fall into a hole of that belief. 

It is the opposite, however. You will be witnessing them from your highest self and you will notice gray areas you didn´t notice before while in survival mode. You will notice how brave and loving they were. You will see their loyalty and how they deserved protection and grace for what they had to carry for the family. You will feel the space left for you to squish in there and love on them because while they say they are mad and were known for their attitude and resting B face, when unguarded, they are an absolute joy and a trove of wisdom and collective vision.

You open the portal to see your enoughness

The teenager inside of you holds so many gifts they do not even know are gifts because they have been made to believe they had an attitude, were “bad” or “Manipulative” when they were trying to keep themselves safe and connected to others. Your teenage self did what made sense for them in their teenage psyche dependent on various previous factors and present dangers that many others knew nothing about.

Your teenage self may have taken the blame for abuse from adults and learned to shrink or hide parts of your truest self to keep adults you love in their complacency as you carried their imposed burdens for them. Your inner teenager is so creative with vibrancy that could power the whole block if someone would just center your magic with their own capacity to stand in your grandness without dimming your purpose or attraction. 

Your inner teen is often the protector of your inner child- guarding and defending the youngest parts of you by retaining the stories and survival strategies they have learned. The inner teenager is often the part of us that is worried about messing up or humiliating ourselves so they hold back, become invisible or don´t even try for fear of disappointment. 

What about all the JOY and FUN the inner teenager has locked away with their fears? How much do we miss out on when we keep our true self from our healing self?

You are who your Inner Teenager Needs

The truth I have seen in myself is often my anger when I feel misunderstood or isolated is from my inner teenager remembering the gut punch of injustice. 

The truth is I thought I was seeking my parents to unburden me, unshackle me from these limiting beliefs that I am very flawed and a disappointment to this family system. That was proven to be false and thank goodness for that. What I found was like my inner child, my inner teen wants to be seen and connected to ME. 

“Me, Myself, Is How” I started saying to myself when I felt I couldn´t complete a task because of my freeze response rooted in the fear of failing and being exposed. 

I found the push I needed to move from freeze to flow by taking a long hot shower without rushing (like I did as a teenager until my dad would bang on the door to stop using all the hot water), getting in my cozy sweatpants and hoodie and driving with my favorite R&B and Hip Hop music on while I sip my bomb homemade smoothie and let my tears flow. I have goosebumps on both arms and my hands on 10 &2 while I belt out a Mary J Blige joint. 

I started to see her riding shotgun, me as a teenager. She would come in like the Ghost of Teenage Past and put her Converse on my passenger dashboard and roll the window all the down. I felt like I was living an Alanis Morrisette video when she would appear in my car at different ages and moods. She had one hand in her pocket and the other was changing my car radio  and rapping cuss words in my car like receding a meditative chant. 

Once I started to see her with my highest presence, I noticed so many beautiful things others had overlooked in me because of their own attachment to constructs and colonial norms that I too had overlooked my amazing gems. She was a treasure chest of great ideas, expansive generosity, unmatched humor and clever word play and a music playlist that made our drive feel like the opening scene in LaLaLand. 

She is a baddie, a sweetheart, a go getter and clutch af. Now this is what I had been looking for, this depth of Soul energy, this sincere presence, this fierce shapeshifter.

Consider the Inner Teen Seance as a Rememberance of You

The Vibe: Channeling your inner teenager, the you that had to move through many new transitions and posture in very awkward moments as a child with more responsibilities and less protection. We want to call in that teenage self to remember their strengths as an altar of our gifts and repair their disappointments with loving encouragement or spirited do-overs. 

Set the scene:

Where does your inner teen come to you? Is it in your bedroom with your lights off with only your ceiling stars glowing? 

Does your inner teen come to you while in a whimsical forrest while you are rolling down hills and chasing ducks?

Does your inner teen prefer being channeled the Now and Then way where you and some friends go to a cemetery or a dark playground, sit in a circle and say incantations until the energy shifts?

Have you ever found yourself in a windtunnel of confused emotions and suddenly you´re in a ceremony of lighting all your candles, the ones that are melted but have a littl emore life left, the smell good ones from Bath and Body Works and even your mom´s Archangel pillar candles. You pull out your incense, put some emo music on and start journaling or sketching.

Maybe your inner teen appears when you finally surrender holding on to being perfect and you get in your car, drive down Pacific Coast Highway with the windows down, wind getting your hair caught in your lip gloss, you turn up the radio and sing your heart out like Lauryn Hill to The Fugees  “Ready or Not” as tears stream down your face. 

An inner teen seance is a sacred ceremony with your Highest Self and your Inner Teenager for the highest good of your present self by understanding what you needed then and repairing it through cellular understanding. 

What age or transition would you like to channel?

What do you notice in your Inner Teen now that you see them from your Higher Self? What messages do they have for you? What needs re-pairing? How do they want to be spoken to? What have they been holding on to that needs releasing from your present Adult self? What needs validation?

This is an opportunity to re-parent your inner teenager and give them the compassionate talk you wished your mother would have had with you. You can hold her in the ways she she didn´t get to give and receive love then, now. 

You have opened a portal to your squishy inner teen heart and can hold their soft face in your hands and sing Sade and affirm to them, “I cherish the day, won´t go astray, won´t be afraid, won´t run away. “ They may even whisper in response, “Show me how deep love can be”. 

So go ahead, grab your old Caboodles with melted candles and potions, head outside to a park with your hoodie on, under the trees and open the portal in ceremony of your past selves and connect them with your present wisdom and highest good. 

This is not just an inner teen seance, it’s a conjuring of your long lost parts, moods and truths. You are the mystic, the movement and the medicine. 

Block your calendar, set the scene and tell your inner teenager, “ready or not, here I come you can´t hide, I´m gonna find you and make you love me”. <3

With love, 

Cynthia Perez

rootedinreflection.org

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